Marketing and advertising

Respond quickly to ad fraud with limited resources with Spider AF

By outsourcing fraud protection to Spider AF, MOLOCO eliminated the cost of an in-house solution and empowered multiple teams across ad operations, data science, and account management to act on fraud immediately.

https://singular.net/
Industry
Marketing and advertising
Company Url
https://singular.net/
Region
Spider AF Product
ROAS improvement
14 days Time to first insight
The Challenge

Budget disappearing with nothing to show for it

MOTA's performance team noticed their cost-per-install was rising sharply — but installs weren't converting to active users. Something was eating their budget.

  • Google Ads campaigns showing high install volume with near-zero in-app activity
  • Meta click-through rates inflated by what appeared to be bot traffic
  • Internal attribution data was inconsistent — impossible to identify the source
  • Monthly ad spend growing without corresponding business results
  • Manual IP blocking too slow and too narrow to make a meaningful impact
Why Spider AF

The only platform built specifically for ad fraud detection

MOTA needed more than a generic analytics tool. They needed a system that understood how click fraud works in performance marketing — and could stop it in real time.

01

Real-time invalid traffic detection

Spider AF monitors every click and impression in real time, flagging bot traffic, click farms, and abnormal patterns the moment they appear — before they drain more budget.

02

Direct Google & Meta integration

Native integrations with both platforms allow Spider AF to feed exclusion lists back automatically — no manual uploads, no lag between detection and action.

03

Transparent fraud reporting

Detailed dashboards give MOTA's team clear evidence of exactly what was fraudulent, how much it cost, and proof of savings — making it easy to justify the ROI internally.

The Approach

From blind spots to full visibility in four steps

01

Connect & audit

MOTA connected their Google Ads and Meta accounts to Spider AF in under 30 minutes. Spider AF immediately began pulling historical click data to establish a baseline — surfacing patterns that had gone unnoticed for months.

02

Identify fraud sources

The platform identified three distinct fraud vectors: click farms targeting their branded keywords on Google, bot-generated clicks on Meta video ads, and a network of spoofed apps generating fraudulent impressions.

03

Deploy exclusion rules

Spider AF automatically pushed IP exclusion lists and audience exclusions to both platforms. Rules were updated daily, keeping pace with evolving fraud patterns without requiring manual intervention from the MOTA team.

04

Monitor & optimise

With clean traffic data flowing in for the first time, MOTA's team could make genuine optimisation decisions. Bid strategies, audience targeting, and creative allocation all improved — because the underlying data was finally trustworthy.

The Results

Campaign performance before & after Spider AF

Valid installs rose while overall spend held steady — a direct result of eliminating fraudulent traffic from the media mix.

Monthly cost-per-install trend (JPY)

Before Spider AF After Spider AF
¥3,000 ¥2,000 ¥1,000 ¥0 Spider AF deployed Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Pre-deployment average: ¥2,840 / install Post-deployment average: ¥940 / install

"We knew something was wrong, but we had no way to prove it. Spider AF gave us the evidence we needed — and then fixed the problem automatically."

Takeshi Yamamoto
Head of Performance Marketing, MOTA
The Outcome

Clean data. Real results. Confidence restored.

Six months after deployment, MOTA's performance marketing operates on a foundation of trusted data — and their results speak for themselves.

With invalid traffic eliminated, MOTA reallocated ¥2.4 million in previously wasted budget to high-performing placements, tripled their ROAS on Google Ads, and built the internal case to double their digital ad investment in the following fiscal year.

Frequently Asked

Questions about Spider AF for performance marketing

Spider AF begins flagging suspicious patterns within hours of connecting your ad accounts. Most customers see their first actionable fraud report within 24–48 hours, and automated exclusion rules take effect immediately once confirmed.

Yes. Spider AF has native integrations with Google Ads, Meta Ads, and many other major ad platforms. Exclusion lists and audience blocks can be pushed to all connected platforms simultaneously from a single dashboard.

Yes — and that's the point. Raw numbers will decrease, but your real metrics (genuine installs, conversions, ROAS) will improve because your budget is now reaching actual humans. Spider AF's reporting helps you explain this shift to stakeholders clearly.

Absolutely. Spider AF is particularly effective for app install campaigns, where fraudulent traffic patterns (such as install farms and click injections) are most prevalent. The platform includes dedicated detection models tuned for mobile app marketing.

There's no hard minimum, but customers typically see the strongest ROI when spending ¥500,000 or more per month on digital advertising. Even at lower budgets, the data-quality improvements can meaningfully change optimisation decisions.

Is click fraud eating your ad budget right now?

Most companies don't know how much they're losing until they measure it. Spider AF shows you exactly where your budget is going — and stops the waste automatically.

✓ No credit card required ✓ Setup in 30 min ✓ Cancel anytime

Respond quickly to ad fraud with limited resources with Spider AF

By outsourcing fraud protection to Spider AF, MOLOCO eliminated the cost of an in-house solution and empowered multiple teams across ad operations, data science, and account management to act on fraud immediately.

Founded in 2013 by top talent from Google, Amazon, and Twitter, the company offers a complete suite of programmatic advertising solutions to help mobile companies optimize the performance of their acquisition, retention, and monetization campaigns.

Goal

・To enhance MOLOCO’s anti-fraud efforts, improve ad quality and boost ROI.
・To determine how MOLOCO’s organization can stay ahead of the arms race between fraud detection and fraudsters.

Issues

・ In late 2017 MOLOCO saw a small dip in sales due to advertisers reducing costs and lowering budgets.
・After completing conversion link tests MOLOCO identified fraudulent activity, an issue plaguing the entire industry.

Results

・Working with Phybbit’s team allowed MOLOCO to outsource their fraud protection and provide access to a dedicated team of anti-fraud professionals. This saves them both time and money as building and maintaining an in-house fraud solution is a costly investment.
・MOLOCO is now happy to collaborate with Phybbit while sharing information across both companies to better identify fraud, which improves the health of the complex ad tech ecosystem.
・Phybbit has proved to be a scalable and intuitive tool that adds value to MOLOCO’s organization. With Spider AF, it is easy to train multiple teams and get them up and running quickly to combat fraud.
・MOLOCO trusts Phybbit as one of the top anti-fraud solutions due to transparency and constantly-evolving methods and tools to combat fraud.

Q. How do you use Spider AF in your workflow?

In our company, ad operations and data science teams are in charge of the optimization of each campaign and controlling ad quality. They monitor the quality of traffic.

When Account Managers or Advertiser teams have questions or need additional information, they can go to Spider AF to drill down and reveal ad fraud. Our Account Managers are in the front line of interaction with advertisers – monitoring campaigns daily to determine value and results.

With Spider AF, the Account Management teams can easily check the quality of traffic and take immediate action.

Q. What do you like about Spider AF?

It’s a scalable and intuitive tool. There’s a lot of visualization and has the capability to slice and dice features that allow us to test any hypothesis.

Mobile Advertising is a continually evolving market, and anti-fraud is a race between the bad and the good guys.


As a startup, Phybbit is continually responding to changes in fraud techniques and developing products quickly. MOLOCO really appreciates the fact that when we have an issue, our dedicated Phybbit team responds as quickly as possible. Typically at larger institutionalized companies, your contacts can change frequently.

Q. When and why did you decide to take action against Ad Fraud?

It was late 2017 and our business was struggling in sales. Our team was concerned that advertisers had reduced budgets and lowered pricing. We also heard similar complaints from other companies. We thought something was off and weird in the entire market.

We tested a conversion link and realized that while click retention was increasing, there was a loss of installs. It was very clear that the installs were being stolen. It was a shocking moment and we realized that we need to put a high priority on fighting fraud.

Learn more: 6 Benefits of Deploying an Ad Fraud Prevention Tool

Q. What were the challenges before using Spider AF?

We were heavily invested in anti-fraud solutions and tried to share knowledge within the industry through blog posts and conferences. Spider AF’s SHARED BLACKLIST is a very novel approach that can benefit the entire industry.

Q. Are there many anti-fraud competitors in the United States? How is Phybbit different compared to them?

The anti-fraud detection market is growing rapidly with a lot of companies and industries needing a solution. It’s a serious problem, but not easy to solve. The good news is that a lot more people are aware of fraud than ever before.

Some companies are jumping into the market with big promises while not fully ready. Many people are in the market for easy money and offering a quick fix but they’re not really interested in finding a lasting solution. On the other hand, Phybbit is thinking long-term and building technology that can help the entire industry on a global scale.

Q. What has changed the most since using Spider AF?

We were extensively invested in anti-fraud as of 2018. MOLOCO is rapidly growing and to shift the investment to fighting fraud – a problem that is always compounding – was becoming difficult. Our anti-fraud engineer was worried about losing his job when he first began to work with Phybbit but now he feels Phybbit is a part of the anti-fraud team here at MOLOCO.

Q. How many people use Spider AF and what teams?

The Anti-Fraud Team is using a few people, about three per office which includes the Account Management and Ad Operations Team. When they have questions about ad fraud, they use Spider AF to check.

Q. Are there any other benefits of Spider AF?

Another benefit of using Spider AF is having your own anti-fraud experts. Building a front end tool is a big investment on the engineering side. We are now able to share our knowledge across the company easily.

Q. How do you plan to enhance business with Spider AF?

Anti-fraud and ad quality have become very important issues for large advertisers. Networks are selected by top measurement tools on the quality of the traffic and ROI.

Singular selected us as a top channel for their ROI index. This can not happen without investing in traffic quality. Anti-fraud enables better ROI.

Thank you so much!